


Nothing gold

by ferggirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Post Season 2, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferggirl/pseuds/ferggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monty/Harper, "So dawn goes down to day, Nothing gold can stay." - Robert Frost</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing gold

After it’s all over, he doesn’t talk much. 

Jasper talks enough for the two of them, and he’s usually close enough that Monty just nods and lets him answer any questions directed his way. 

They lost so many people that day. Friends, allies, family and strangers.

Blood must have blood, the grounders said. Then they walked away and left the blood for the 47.

Now the 29.

Sometimes he catches Clarke watching him, a line between her eyebrows. She’s been quiet, too. He thinks she knows something of what he’s feeling. 

It’s not just loss, death, despair. That grief is easy enough, universally understood. 

But he has heard from Monroe how closely she worked with the grounder commander. How she staked everything on their trust. 

Octavia comes to him one night, bursting with anger and resentment, and tells him a story of betrayal and fiery death.

Monty listens. She has real pain, and he knows she is fighting her own battles. But when Octavia leaves, he smiles. 

Because it means Clarke understands. She’s not only mourning her friends. 

She’s lost something just as precious as a life. She’s lost the wispy possibility that had only just taken shape. The hazy, hopeful promise of a love strong enough to survive on this cursed planet. 

They wind up next to each other one night at dinner, and before their other friends can intrude with their chatter, she touches a hand to his shoulder. 

"Who was it?"

He hesitates, because it was a whisper of hope and nothing more. But it’s Clarke, and he knows she will understand. 

"Harper. It - maybe it could have been Harper."

Her fingers dig into his collarbone in sympathy, and he swallows down the sadness with his over-cooked fish. 

******

They dither, the adults, over how to honor their dead. They think of them as kids, as victims. 

Clarke finds her voice long enough to stand in front of the council with a furious Bellamy at her side and inform them that they were goddamn heroes. All 18 of them. 

In the end, they erect a plaque with their names inscribed next to a Robert Frost poem, and Wick welds it to the side of the drop ship while the remnants of the 100 look on. 

Monty comes back the next day, Miller and Monroe in tow, and starts planning the garden.

He’s seen plans of them - the big ceremonial things, with hedges and flowers - in the Ark computers. Agro station didn’t approve of getting lost in the past, but he always loved the way they looked like circuits, mazes, a mix of natural and machine. 

His labyrinth is low, mostly vegetables and a clump of those little yellow flowers Harper had talked about, that last night. A few others come forward with requests, hesitant and unsure. Dandelions, daisies, bluebells and morning glories fill in the spaces between the squash and tomatoes. 

In a few months, they grow up into a lush partition, low enough that no one feels trapped but the maze becomes clear. The yellow flowers bloom riotously.

They remind him of the way she’d smiled when he stood beside her, weapons in hand, ready to beat them back that first time. 

******

He wakes sometimes, with dreams of the cages. 

He can still hear Harper screaming. 

It’s the cruelest trick of memory he can imagine, to hear her voice again, but only when she’s in agony. 

He always lies awake after those dreams, carefully remembering the other moments. When they would whisper, afraid and alone in that cold room, about the sunshine, about Clarke and the righteous rage she was going to bring down on the mountain, about the differences between agro and factory station, about the look on Bellamy’s face last time Octavia had left a frog in his bed. 

She told him her favorite color was yellow - like those little flowers. He explained how to make moonshine.

Anything to keep from crying. 

"I wish it had been true," she’d said later, right before it had all gone to hell. "The mountain, the life they said we could have."

"We’ll make a better one," he’d promised. "Clarke and Bellamy and you and me."

It was the last time he’d seen her smile. “And Jasper?”

"Yeah, I guess he can come." He’d winked and then turned to the rest of them. "Ok, the door control is down. Ready when you are."

"Monty," when he’d made to move back to the group she’d grabbed his hand. "Promise me. No matter what. We’ll make a better one."

Now he lies on his cot, looking up at the stained ceiling of the tent he shares with Jasper and Miller. There’s a small pot of yellow flowers on his side table, a present from Clarke.

It never was. But it could have been. And for that he’ll always grieve. 

He turns to them, as he does any night the sadness catches up to him. It helps him to say it, even if the broken whisper disappears into the night unheard by anyone else.

"No matter what. I promise."


End file.
